Celebrate If You Must But We Are Not In Canaan Yet

On 8^th August, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said “We are now in Canaan, the bigger task of building Canaan now begins” – conquering the Amelekites and Canaanites and taking over their lands and cities!

This statement implies Kenyans must work hard to realize Canaan which is a figurative for freedom and prosperity. Simultaneously and falsely, it claims new constitution has overnight frog-leaped Kenyans from the desert to Canaan, from old to new Kenya, from Third World to First, from poverty to wealth.

While promulgation of new constitution is important, I disagree with the implication that those who will go to bed poor on 27^th August, will wake up rich on 28^th. We must be truthful in our optimism and not be victims of the culture of living on falsehoods and false hopes, even for purposes of feeling good and buoying up our spirits. We must not celebrate being in Canaan when we are not, or we rest on our laurels when we must not.

For many years, we compared ourselves with the worst like Somalia and Sudan , felt great about it and forgot to catch up with the best, moving only slightly ahead of the worst and that’s why we are where we are today.

But Raila’s claim that the new constitution will catapult Kenyans into Canaan is not entirely without merit. But only a few more Kenyans will land in Canaan . Majority will remain exactly where they are in the desert.

After all, the rich of Kenya have always been in Canaan . Some were taken there by Kenyatta, others by Moi and now Kibaki, Raila and the new constitution will take there a few more as new MPs, senators, governors, members of commissions, new judges, ambassadors and political women. These are the people for whom the rain of the new constitution will fall, not IDPs, poor workers, unemployed youths and poor farmers that will be taxed heavily to mollify ethnic elites for political stability.

Canaan of Kenya is Canaan of the rich, not of the poor or everybody.

Millions will never forget 12^th December 1963, the day of our independence. We went to bed convinced that on 13^th December, we would wake up in heaven. Despite our celebrations which were greater than Christmas, colonial hell is yet to die. However, independence did land newly created African elites into Canaan , almost immediately.

But it was the failure of independence and then Narc-Kibaki regime to take all into Canaan that gave birth to the struggle for second liberation and new constitution. But now we have the new constitution, are we in heaven or Canaan ?  How can someone be in heaven and not feel it? Maybe some feel it, but almost all I see don’t look it.  Instinctively, Kenyans seem to fear yet another betrayal but why?

The new constitution is a set of promises that leaders may or not honor. If Kenyan leaders continue to enjoy impunity, they will betray and sabotage the new constitution and render it still born. But the million dollar question is why Kenyans trust bad leaders to midwife, baby sit and look after the new constitution. Are we reckless, hopeless or don’t care?

After giving Israelis a new constitution of the Ten Commandments, God barred Moses and his generation from entering Canaan because it was too corrupt for Canaan . Only the courageous and untarnished generation of Joshua and Caleb was allowed into Canaan . Can we sincerely say our leaders are better than Moses and more allowable into Canaan ? If our rich have unfairly entered and contaminated Canaan , can God not bar us from it?

If independence was a false start that largely failed because of its reliance on capitalism to deliver to people what it could only deliver to a few, why will the new constitution not also fail because of its reliance on the same capitalism and its monsters of poverty, detention, majimbo, negative ethnicity and corruption?

Capitalism mothers poverty, not wealth. While the new constitution promises food and other economic rights, capitalism will not deliver because it is not its nature to do so.  Unless it is amended to address capitalism, new constitution will not be a roadmap to salvation but a signpost to self-destruction.